Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

A Massive Holiday Act of Idiocy (Part one of two)

Date: 01 February, 2016

By: Chief

r, the week that New Mexico was closed.

Well the whole state wasn't closed for an entire week but the southeast quadrant was isolated from every place else on the entire planet for just about an entire week. Yes sir it was quite a show to watch. When you could see it.

There was no surprise

This massive snowstorm was actually categorized as a blizzard by the National Weather Service (NWS). Having never been in a blizzard before I can wholeheartedly testify that there was a whole lot of snow falling and a whole lot of falling snow being blown around by high winds and it just did not stop for about two and a half days. I'll repeat what I already stated — it was quite a show to watch.

I have got to tell y'all that the weather guessers at the NWS did a pretty doggone good job predicting the:

Storm,

Storm track,

Snow amounts,

Temperature, and;

Anything pertaining to wind.

And that my friends, in this state, is in fact no easy task.

But the big thing, and I do mean the really big thing, is the NWS nailed it a few days in advance of the storm hitting the southeast quadrant of the state. This means it should have come as no surprise to anyone. Period. Yet, for reasons which completely escape me it did surprise people. A lot of people. And that friends and neighbors is just incomprehensible. It is also incredibly stupid.

Who were not surprised? Well ranchers, farmers, dairymen and feedlot operators for starters. Quoting Kob (online TV news):

"Farmers and livestock owners in Roswell are doing everything they can to prepare for the storms predicted for this weekend.

" 'Nothing really concerns me too much if I know the storm is coming ill[sic] just make sure they have plenty of food and shelter', livestock owner Bryan Juul said. 'If it comes up suddenly, then I just make sure they have their food[,] shelter and water but they usually handle it pretty well'."

You see, folks in the "Ag" business must have a working brain otherwise they end up out of business and quickly. And if they do go out of business then there is the very unpleasant side effect called shortages of meat, vegetables, cheese, etc. Most unpleasant indeed. Remember this — 'Fat is a food group and gravy is a beverage'. My two favorite food groups. Yum.

The only problem is cattle are on ranges or in huge pens. Thus, no matter what a rancher or dairyman does there will still be fairly sizable risk of a loss of livestock. Quoting Kob:

"A dairy specialist with New Mexico State University told AgWeb that though there are not solid figures on the numbers of cows that could be lost, a 5 percent lost estimate of cows in the region means more than 20,000 cows could die because of the storm.

[. . .]

"Many dairies have also had to dump days' worth of milk that simply could not be delivered."

That is terrible.

The second and, sigh, final group of people who were not taken by surprise are those who have a fully functioning brain and think. Regrettably this final group of people is not nearly as 'all inclusive' as you might believe or even hope for. Indeed, there is a case to be made that the opposite is true which most certainly sucks bananas, a nickel a bushel.

However, suffice it to say there was a minimum of 48 hours notice that a real barn burner of a storm was going to pay the state a visit, with particular attention being paid to the southeast quarter of New Mexico. Hence, the question becomes how did so many people get marooned on various and sundry roads throughout the southeast quarter of the state? The answer is incredibly simple.

Once "Goliath," the name of the winter storm which paid us a call announced its arrival, in under twenty four hours all roads leading into or out of Roswell, New Mexico were closed. Period. I performed a screen capture of the New Mexico road conditions on the 27th of December, 2015 to give you an idea of how isolated Southeast New Mexico was. In the lower right area is Roswell, New Mexico and as you can see there was utterly no where to go and even if there was a place to go — there was no way to get there.

Stupid

Can you spell s-t-u-p-i-d?

Yes indeed. An unbelievable number of people, for reasons absolutely unknown to positively everybody, pushed the stupid button. Now, as we all know, once the stupid button is pushed — stupidity — takes over all human thought processes. Once depressed (and it is depressing) the brain simply "drops set" (a very old crypto device phrase [KW-26 devices]) and then resets into the stupid mode. Any type of:

Thinking,

Thought,

Logic, or even;

Instincts —

are basically shunted to ground and the creature previously known as a Homo Sapien has been transformed into a walking, talking — idiot. Also known as Homo Stupid.

Believe me, it was not just regular folks who pushed the stupid button. Our intrepid idiotic Governor Susana Martinez apparently fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down. Thus, in a bold stroke of utter lunacy she:

Declared a State of Emergency, and then;

Called out the National Guard —

after all the damned roads became completely impassible. An analogy (that's a way to compare things Governor) would be 'closing the barn door after all the horses have run out'. I told you it was a stroke of utter lunacy. Quoting Kob:

" 'This is a dire situation, especially the eastern half of the state where the storm has hit hardest and continues to dump snow', Governor Susana Martinez said. 'We monitored the situation throughout the night and activated the National Guard to assist stranded motorists. We have a lot of resources on the ground to clear our roads, as well as conduct search and rescue operations. I ask New Mexicans to please stay off the roads until the conditions improve'.